From USA Today:

Status update: Facebook not so diverse Jessica Guynn, USATODAY 8 p.m. EDT June 25, 2014

 

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook, the world’s most popular social network, for the first time released statistics on the makeup of its workforce that do not reflect the demographics of its users around the globe.

That’s an interesting new standard for employment diversity: not your metropolitan commuting area, or state, or country, but all your customers in the world.

The lopsided numbers are just the latest from a major Silicon Valley company to paint a stark picture of an industry sector dominated by white men

Damn white men stealing an entire industry sector from the women of color who started it: Frederica Terman, Wilhelmina Hewlett, Willa Shockley, Roberta Noyce, Gordonette Moore, Stephanie Wozniak, etc. etc.

and are sure to escalate an already heated debate over the lack of diversity in the tech industry.

Nearly 70% of Facebook employees are men and 57% are white. Asians make up 34% of employees.

But Hispanics represent just 4% and African Americans are just 2% of Facebook’s workforce.

When it comes to technical employees, the numbers are even more grim. Eighty-five percent are male, 53% white and 41% Asian. Hispanics make up just 3% and African Americans just 1% of the workforce.

At the top of the company, the statistics are no better. Seventy-seven percent of senior level employees are men, 74% are white and 19% are Asian. Hispanics account for 4% and African Americans for 2% of employees in high level positions.

“We build products to connect the world, and this means we need a team that understands and reflects many different communities, backgrounds and cultures,” Maxine Williams, Facebook’s global head of diversity, said in a blog post.

Technology is a key driver of the U.S. economy. It makes the products from iPhones to Google search that Americans use every day. Yet the companies that make these products do not mirror the demographics of the United States in race, gender or age.

So that means this changing-face-of-America stuff wasn’t such a hot idea? What you’re trying to say is that white men built America into a technological powerhouse but the workforce keeps get less white male, so the country is in big trouble, right?

The pressure is especially high for Facebook. Its users span races and cultures around the globe, and the majority of Facebook users are women, making it crucial for Facebook to have a diverse workforce, said Stanford fellow Vivek Wadhwa, author of the upcoming book Innovating Women.

Vivek Wadhwa is not a woman. Nor innovative.

Facebook finds itself in a bigger and brighter spotlight because its No. 2 executive is Sheryl Sandberg, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent female leaders and the author of the best seller Lean In.

She told USA TODAY earlier this month that the lack of diversity in male-dominated corporate America is “pretty depressing.”

The concept of “conflict of interest” has just evaporated from the mental toolbox.

 

Commenter Wilkey writes:

If these companies were smart, they’d begin insourcing their janitors, landscapers, and cafeteria workers, so as to boost their minority numbers. But it would just kill them, you know, to see their net profit margins reduced from 52.1% to 51.9%, not to mention the huge status hit of having illiterate high school dropouts being able to say they work for Facebook or Google.

Yes, this idea that working for a certain company, like Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn try to get jobs with Google in “The Interns,” proves you are hot stuff is an interesting change.